DNF Duel provided fighting game players with a fresh and unique experience during its open beta test this past weekend, but that doesn’t mean everything was flawless and perfect from the jump.
After putting in a handful of hours playing matches of the beta, we’ve come up with 5 things we’d like to see DNF Duel change before it hits store shelves next year.
Of course there are things to be said about the game’s balance and characters, but we’ll be focusing instead here on the general systems and features found within.
Our goal isn’t to completely change what’s already present either.
Rather, it’d be nice to see the gameplay opened up a bit on both offense and defense as well as making some aspects more immediately clear during battle.
Some of these are probably just wishful thinking, but believe they’d benefit the game in the long run and out the starting gate.
Arguably the coolest and most interesting aspect of DNF Duel is the ability to cancel special Skills into each other or MP Skills though the options to do so can vary wildly between characters.
Classes like the Striker feel as though they can simply cancel any Skill into any other and have it work while others are more limited in their cancel options / the Skills won’t combo together if canceled.
Our suggestion is to include something of a universal system that allows for any Skill to be successfully linked to another (non-MP Skill) once during a string.
This would allow for a wider range of combo and situational conversion opportunities that aren’t already present.
That change could get a bit nutty for some fighters like the Crusader, but limiting the universal cancel to one time and balancing the game with that in mind shouldn’t be busted.
DNF Duel is a rare fighting game specimen where there’s a considerable more amount of special Skills available compared to normal attacks.
Between the neutral, crouching and air, players only have access to 6 normals in total while there’s at least 10 Skills.
As things stood in the beta, normals only seemed to serve as a way to poke and start a chain of crazy specials or check an unsafe move.
This could be changed by implementing a few more command normals into the game to serve some more utility and function.
Adding a slower overhead or shorter ranged strike that leaves the user at advantage on block would create some more interesting interactions and make crouch blocking not always the de facto go to on defense.
One thing that hit me by the end of the beta when players began to better understand the characters and systems is that some of those combos on characters like Striker, Kunoichi and Dragon Knight can go on for quite a while.
This led to a feeling of having large chunks of time where there was little to no interaction to be had, especially if you get hit with two big combos back to back.
The way this is normally amended in other frenetic “anime fighters” is to include a Burst system to pop yourself out a combo, which isn’t present here.
Implementing a Bust in DNF that takes maybe 50–75 MP and is maybe also limited by a cooldown would add to the game’s back and forth in our opinion since that would also open the door to Burst bait opportunities on offense as well.
Considering the game already uses Granblue Fantasy: Versus’ block button and forward dodge, it’d also be nice to have the neutral spot dodge option as well.
And I’m not sure if it’d break things, but considering how large many attacks are, it’s kinda surprising DNF doesn’t have air blocking as an option either.
After reaching a critically low amount of health in DNF Duel, characters gain access to their Awakening Skill Supers.
Even though they are not reversals, they still proved to be a very strong option in the beta because they cost no MP to use and are performed with a single button press, which makes them exceptionally easy to hit confirm into thanks to the game’s extended Skill cancels.
These could be balanced a bit better by perhaps giving Awakening Skills an MP cost requirement as well and shouldn’t prove to be too hard of a nerf to them, as players tended to have an abundance of meter available at the end of a match in our experience.
It would at least though limit the follow-up opportunities a good bit after landing one.
We’d also like to see shorter versions of the Super animations added to DNF too, so that we’re not stuck looking at the same long cutscenes hundreds of times.
That’s not to say we want the cool and flashy animations gone either. It just might help keep the flow of battle better if the full showcase popped up every two or three times when hit.
One aspect of DNF Duel that many players likely glossed over completely was the fact that characters not only gained their Awakening Skills at low life but also a unique buff to aid in the potential comeback.
These were indicated by special icons that would appear below the fighter’s character portrait, but there was no way of knowing what these special buffs did in the game itself.
How many of you actually knew that Dragon Knight gets increased MP recovery?
The only way to know the effects of these buffs was to look at the move lists online, which will assuredly be in the base game, but there’s another way this could be easily mitigated.
Instead of trying to memorize over a dozen different icons, the game could include a flash of text under the image for a few seconds to give a brief description of what they do — like “increase attack” for Striker’s Power Fist buff.
You can check out our full review for DNF Duel’s first beta here, and let us know in the comments what adjustments you’d like to see made before launch.
